


paradox poker with the cards face-up

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Breakups (referenced), M/M, Sibling Incest, and 2. i dont feel like posting it lmao, and yall already know i like dirkhal. like its not a secret, i....hm, like the notes file on my phone, so i figured id post it here, theres more but its 1 bad, this has been sitting in my drafts for a good six months
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 12:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15194435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: when the big picture and the tiny details converge and come together, crushing two lives between them in the process





	paradox poker with the cards face-up

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this like. almost 8 months ago so it may be vaguely incongruous with my current writing style

“i’m your goddamn _brother_ , you incorrigible, contrived fucking idiot, and i’m not just gonna stand here and watch you run yourself into the ground over someone that doesn’t care enough about you to fucking let you down easy!”  
“oh, and _you_ care about me?!”  
“yes, i do, you absolute moron! of course i care about you!” dirk stops in his tracks. his mirror (well, not really) stares at him from across the room, his red eyes alight with frustration and something like concern behind his sunglasses. dirk stares back, his face a mask, before he spots something. he does a double-take at the sight of the tracks of crystal winding down hal’s face, because surely it can’t be true, his twin isn’t crying. but he is, tears tracing thin lines down his brother’s pale cheeks as he stands on the other side of the bedroom, facing dirk.  
“of course i care about you! i always have, you’re just too stupid to realize it! you’re my fucking twin, i’m practically contractually obligated to care about you!” hal says, his voice threatening to break, as he crosses the room to stand in front of dirk. as soon as his anger flares, it promptly fizzles out, and hal is left two feet from his brother with tears in his eyes and staring at his hands.  
“all we ever do anymore is fight. jake’s driven a wedge between us, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. we haven’t had a conversation that didn’t devolve into a fight in weeks, dirk,” hal says, breaking the caustic silence. dirk opens his mouth to protest, closing it after a moment; he knows hal’s right. instead of arguing, dirk simply steps closer to hal, raising one of his hands. hal doesn’t move back like dirk expected him to, so he takes the opportunity to slide off hal’s sunglasses and expose the duplicate rubies that burn holes into dirk’s resolve whenever he sees them. he’s weak for those eyes, dirk thinks, only those, because dave’s never make him feel the same as his twin’s.  
“i miss you.” hal’s voice shakes, and the irritation that was surely intended is lost in his wavering tone. dirk can only offer a shrug and an upturn of his mouth as he swipes his thumb under hal’s eyes, interrupting the tear tracks and marring the soft skin of his lower lids with new creases. dirk lifts his own glasses into his hair, allowing his brother to catch a glimpse of his own eyes---eyes like tangerines and bitter medicine lollipops, eyes that hal hasn’t seen up close in countless days-weeks-months.  
“i miss you too.” dirk smiles a tiny smile. hal responds by snaking his skinny arms around dirk’s middle and pulling him close. they’re the same height, as dirk frequently muses, always have been, as they rest their foreheads together and stand pressed together like flowers in a heavy book in the middle of the silent bedroom.  
“what do we do now?” asks hal, his voice now quiet. dirk traces swirling non-patterns on hal’s back with his fingers.  
“we could leave. run away,” dirk says into the silence. “i wouldn’t have to break up with jake if he wasn’t there.”  
hal laughs, a sound that dirk would kill to hear forever. “‘m not gonna make you break up with your boyfriend for me.”  
“and if i did it anyway?” dirk tilts his head ever-so-slightly into the side of hal’s hal closes his eyes in response.  
“i wouldn’t stop you.”  
“didn’t think you would.”  
hal looks at dirk not quite in the eyes through-half-closed lids. dirk holds his hands to hal’s face, steadying his thin smile.  
“i love you,” dirk says, the end quirking like he’s asking a question. hal presses the ghost of a kiss to the space between his twin’s eye and cheekbone and whispers, “i love you too.”

~~~~~~

“you did it, huh,” hal says, draped across the red leather couch in the living room like an old curtain, idly playing with the fraying stitches. “how’d he take it? didja tell him why?”  
“he took it pretty well.” dirk leans on hal’s side, burying his face into his twin’s shoulder and feeling the rough material of hal’s shirt grating over his jawline. “but i don’t know if that’s good or bad, you know?”  
hal ducks his head down, resting it on top of dirk’s. “i think it’s good.”  
dirk snorts. “of course _you_ would." he slides a hand over from it’s resting place near his thigh, and laces his fingers with his brother’s. “i did it for you.”  
“you didn’t have to.”  
“i wanted to, though.”  
hal brushes his fingers over dirk’s hand softly. dirk stris at the touch, pressing the side of his face deeper into the crook of hal’s neck, his eyelashes ghosting over hal’s collarbone. “i’ve done it before. to a few people. this wasn’t any different.”  
“don’t say it like that,” hal hums, raising a hand to glide over the divet between dirk’s neck and shoulder. “it sounds so crass.”  
“maybe so,” dirk mumbles, his syllables blurring as he begins to fall asleep. hal pulls him up from his droopy position into a more comfortable one, with his shoulders level with hal’s knees and his legs curled at the far end of the tacky sofa. hal intertwines his fingers with dirk’s platinum hair, combing through in an attempt to work out the viscous styling product as he slowly slides off dirk’s sunglasses and exposes the dark circles that stand out like test swipes of roxy’s dollar-store eyeshadow on dirk’s pale skin. hal sweeps his thumb over dirk’s relaxed face, its loop-whorl print applying quiet pressure to every freckle, every displaced blonde eyelash that hal saw mirrored on his own face every night.  
“you goin’ all retro---retroflective on me?” slurs a half-awake dirk, through closed eyes and barely moving lips, jerking hal out of his reverie. hal smiles, unseen by his twin.  
“and so what if i am?”  
dirk laughs tiredly, the sound bubbling up and spilling out of him like simple syrup from the smashed bottle in the basement liquor cabinet that they steal from too often. “go right ahead, but, uh, keep the casual twincest to a minimum.” a slow smile spreads across his face as if with a butter knife as hal pointedly leans down over dirk’s face and into his raised arms that crown hal’s head like a halo, a wreath of skinny and sunburnt laurels, freckled by the texan sun.

~~~~~~

“tell me you love me,” dirk says, his voice wavering, as tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. “please.”  
hal runs a hand up his shoulder, down his hip. “i love you.” he leaves soft kisses on dirk’s skin like falling leaves, across his neck, his chest, his jaw. he intercepts the rivulets of dirk’s hot tears, rushing down his face like rivers over the desert horizon. “i promise.”  
“you aren’t gonna leave me, are ya?” dirk asks, half-joking with a quarter of a laugh, and he feels his brother smile gently against his collarbone. hal scatters more kiss-prints across the vaguely concave surface between his ribs and shoulder blade, dirk shuddering underneath him, his breath hitching as he feels hal’s lips and teeth and tongue touch the sensitive skin the way the sound of scratching records touch the heart in a way nothing has, at least for dirk, since jake _fucking_ english left a handprint on his soul.  
“swear on my life.”  
“don’t go.”  
“won’t.”  
dirk breathes slowly, his chest rising and falling in sync with his brother’s, hands laced at the back of hal’s neck like a gossamer vice. muttered obscenities collide with hal’s skin, snowflakes on a golden field. dirk tugs hal’s head down to meet his own, their lips meeting once, twice, before hal tangles his hands in dirk’s hair and deigns instead to map the constellations in dirk’s freckles, finding the ancient shapes within the opposite of stars. _pisces, gemini, orion’s belt, ursa minor, andromeda,_ and the twins fall asleep in tandem.

~~~~~~

“i’m coming down,” hal softly calls down to his brother from the top bunk. dirk, half asleep and tangled in blankets, gives a noncommittal snort and rolls over, his eyes facing the bedroom door. a second later hal’s bare legs come swinging from the top slat and the rest of him comes crashing into dirk’s bunk.  
“augh, what the fuck!?” hisses dirk, hal’s bony knees digging into the small of his back. hal makes a shushing motion with his index finger and proceeds to wiggle around, trying to make enough room for the both of them in the bottom bunk’s twin sized bed. dirk grabs him around the middle before he can topple over the side, hal scrabbling for purchase on dirk’s bare skin, and he breathes a sigh as dirk tugs him back over the thin sheets and back onto the bed.  
“what the hell are you doing? what’s wrong with using the ladder like a normal human being???” dirk mumbles into hal’s ear, his voice still rough and heavy with sleep. hal twists around in his spot, seemingly as a response, and winds his arms around dirk’s neck.  
“i’m just chillin’,” he says into dirk’s collarbone, and his twin snorts, shifts, shivers in the draft from the open window. dirk seizes a handful of what amounts to the bedsheet that’s tangled around their ankles and pulls it up to shoulder level, dragging cotton over goosebumps and frayed end threads over chilled, bare skin. rain pitter-patters on the windowsill as hal holds his body flush with dirk’s their foreheads touching sideways on the pillow. dirk breathes out, the ghost of this breath carving canyons of warmth over hal’s chest and shoulders.  
“‘s cold,” hal says, his sleep-thick voice barely audible from within dirk’s arms. dirk holds hal’s cold hands in his warm ones, bringing them up to hold them to the side of his face, and kisses him, the tip of his hose, his freckled cheek, this soft and slightly parted lips. he scatters kiss-prints over cold skin, in wild and sleep-ruffled hair, between white teeth and on top of closed eyes. hal forces a breath through his teeth and buries himself farther into dirk’s form before he brings his head forwards to meet his brother’s and he kisses him, his tired tongue sweeping over dirk’s, and behind his teeth. hal scrapes them over dirk’s lip as they separate---he doesn’t draw blood, but dirk digs his thumbnail into hal’s soft forearm in retaliation anyway. he catches hal’s squeak of pain in his mouth with another kiss, this one soft like a whispered apology. dirk wraps his arms around hal’s wiry frame, his skin radiating heat, and hal sinks into his embrace like his brother is made of wax as sleep overtakes them both at last.


End file.
